Soul Sucker

Ingrid Anderson (Frances Dortmund’s) POV

Yacht Street Living, Kingston Harbor, Royal Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saturday, February 25, 2023

I’d called Lana and Lonnie and told them to get here as soon as possible after the accident. The pair was coming up the gangplank now after flying here from Denver.

Landon’s exit strategy from his illegal activities had moved up. Officials he was working with inside the Ukrainian government were nervous for their freedom, not their lives. The ongoing war with Russia had been a boon, with billions in aid flowing through their hands to skim off. Now the President was cleaning house in an anti-corruption purge. Generals, ministers, and officials are being fired, replaced, or jailed as the President’s loyalists take their place.

With the exit strategies triggered, a series of automated trades began last week. The last of the transactions happened last night with the Mideastern banking executives we’d entertained on the yacht. With their cooperation, the Feds would run into a dead end tracing the funds.

How did we know it was happening? Lonnie made sure there was NOTHING that happened with Landon or his lawyer that we didn’t know of. We had surveillance devices in all the rooms on the yacht, in Landon’s home, and inside Doug’s office. The Satellite Internet on the boat and Doug’s office internet had surveillance devices that recorded all traffic in and out. Lonnie even planted a recording device in Doug’s briefcase, capable of downloading all his conversations when we brought the matching device close enough.

The only thing we didn’t have were the account numbers and passwords for the final accounts. Doug and Landon never spoke of them, and the bank accounts predated our surveillance.

“Ingrid,” Lana said as she rushed to me on the fantail. She embraced me like I was her daughter, though it was the other way around. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“We are here for you as long as you need us,” Lonnie added as he joined the hug.

“Take their bags to the guest rooms,” I ordered one of the stewards. “You must be tired after all that flying. Join me in the main salon?”

“Certainly,” Lonnie replied.

With the other guests on their way to the Gulf and the police gone, the yacht was quiet again. Doug Graves was inside, sitting on a stuffed chair. He had his laptop open on the table in front of him. He looked up as the three of us walked in. “Lana, Lonnie,” he said as he stood up. “Thank you for coming. Ingrid needs her friends right now.”

“She does,” Lana said. We sat near him, giving the steward our drink orders. “Ensure we have privacy now,” I told her after she finished serving.

“Of course, Ma’am.” I could hear her radio other crew members with their owner’s instructions. None of them would come onto this deck until I lifted the order.

I waited until she closed and locked the door and disappeared down the ladder. “Lana and Lonnie are here to help me put affairs in order after my husband’s tragic death,” I said.

“I’ll certainly help in any way I can,” Doug replied. “Once we have the death certificate from local authorities, we can file for your life insurance claim and execute Landon’s will. His planning ensures you’d have a comfortable life if something happened like this.”

“Lana is perfectly capable of handling such mundane affairs,” I said with a smile to my daughter. “I’m referring to the things you and Landon never wrote down.”

Doug froze for a moment, then forced himself to relax. I could hear his heart racing. “What do you mean?”

“Safecoins,” Lonnie replied. Doug went white as a sheet. “Until two weeks ago, they were trading around $5000 a unit. Sell orders started pushing the prices down until yesterday. It was over $4000 when the US markets closed. When the Japanese exchange opened, it went into freefall. Overnight, the market collapsed, and it is now trading at less than twenty dollars. Some people lost a LOT of money.”

“Crypto investments are volatile,” Doug replied evenly. “This kind of thing happens.”

“And when they do, the people who started the cryptocurrency make a lot of money when they get out at the top of the market,” I said. “What are the punishments for financial fraud and money laundering these days, Lana?”

“Wire fraud is max twenty years per count. Tax evasion is five. If they go after him with RICO for a criminal enterprise, he’s looking at twenty years per act. All this time is in a Federal prison with no parole. He’ll be sucking dick in the showers until he chokes to death,” she said with a feral grin.

“I’ve done nothing wrong,” he protested. His forehead was starting to sweat, and his neck was flushed.

Lonnie pulled some papers out of his jacket pocket and handed them over. Doug’s eyes widened as he reviewed the account transaction histories and sell orders. He stopped reading them after a few pages, pausing to gulp down his drink. “How did you get these?”

“You and Landon didn’t cover your tracks well,” I said. “Did you think I wouldn’t take steps to protect myself before marrying him? I had these two find out EVERYTHING about him, on the public and the hidden sides. I knew about his illegal earnings and your plan to cash out and launder it through offshore accounts and investments. I let it go because I had plausible deniability. My name is nowhere on those accounts. You are the only living person with control of them now. You started moving money into your private accounts before we’d recovered Landon’s body! Do you think I’m too young and blonde to realize when someone is stealing eighty-seven point one MILLION dollars of MY money?”

He wiped his forehead with the napkin and finished his drink. “What do you want?”

“I know the deal you had with my husband. He was paying you twenty percent for your help with the financial side. Since you tried to fuck me over, that betrayal will cost you five percent.”

He looked up at me, his face showing his shock. “You want eighty-five percent?”

I nodded. “You’ll still have enough to move somewhere the Feds will never find you and live out your life in luxury. Don’t pout, Doug. You got caught with your hand in the cookie jar, so take the punishment and get the FUCK out of my life. Once we finish our business, you disappear. If we see you again, it won’t end well.”

“And if I don’t?”

I smiled. “That’s the best part about being the new wife. I had no idea my husband was involved in ANY of this. I’m sure the FBI and IRS will grant me immunity if I turn over the entire situation to them, including any records I might have. I might even get to keep some as a reward.”

“Your cut under the new deal is sixteen point three million dollars, Doug,” Lonnie said. “Invested, it will throw off almost a million a year in earnings for you to live on. Add in whatever other assets you have, and you can have a comfortable life on a beach in Thailand or something.”

“Or, you can spend the rest of your life in a concrete cell getting ordered to bend over and spread your cheeks,” Lana said. “Either way is fine with me.”

He didn’t have a choice, and he knew it. “I’ll take the deal for the fifteen percent.”

I smiled. “I knew you would. Lonnie, what is our revised number?”

“We’ll round down to ninety-two point five million,” he replied. “Set up the transaction, and I’ll enter the account number to transfer it to.”

“It’s going to take a while. I have money in a dozen places right now.”

“I’ve nothing else to do right now,” I told him.

I sat back while the two men moved the money around, sipping my drink and catching up with my daughter. When Lonnie had his part done, he walked out with his laptop. He’d keep moving money around, funneling it through the offshore companies we used for my other funds. “That will conclude our business, Doug. Pack up your things and be off my boat within the hour.”

He nodded and closed his laptop. He couldn’t wait to be gone.

Lana turned to me. “Are you keeping the boat?”

I nodded. “I like it, and it’s a great way to move around and hide my activities. It’s also big enough to voyage to Europe for the summer.”

“The Denver place?”

“I could transfer that to you and Lonnie,” I said. “I know how much you need some stability in your lives. If I’m not always changing identities, there’s much less for you to do.”

I turned to the Captain as we watched Landon’s co-conspirator depart thirty minutes later. “We will stay in Kingston until the autopsy is complete, and we can cremate my husband’s body. After that, I don’t want to see this place again. Too many bad memories now,” I told him. “Continue our tour of the Eastern Caribbean as planned. Landon wanted me to see these places, after all.”

“Of course, Ma’am. Will your guests be joining us for the voyage?”

“They’ll be with me through the end,” I replied.

My family joined me in the hot tub on the sun deck as the sun began to set. I wore my black bikini and a black coverup.

I was in mourning, after all.

Using the noise for cover, Lonnie updated me on the surveillance he’d left in John Miller’s apartment. “Taking the journal wasn’t enough,” he told me. “John made a digital copy of it, and he’s been studying it diligently. His grandfather has filled in what he remembers of his grandfather. He was the last Demon Hunter of their line.”

“He’s taking this seriously?”

Lonnie nodded. “He described to his grandfather a vision he received when he touched your hand in the doctor’s office. He saw your succubus form in that instant.”

I thought back to Indianapolis. “He touched me as Jordyn and didn’t have that vision.”

“His grandfather believes the first contact woke up the gift of sight. What he saw in Denver matches what his great-great-grandfather saw of you in Boston.” I shivered as I remembered that time; I barely escaped and didn’t return to that area for a century. “He also has the Dagger of the Lord, and the journal describes its use. He could kill you, Mom.”

“What should we do about him?”

“I’ve got him tied up with the legal stuff for now,” Lonnie said. “We stay out of New York, and he can’t leave. If he’s convicted, the problem goes away for years.”

“And if not? We plan to keep this identity of mine for years.”

“That depends on John Miller. If he stays to himself, we ignore him.”

“And if he looks for Mom,” Lana asked.

“Then he must die,” I replied. “I can’t risk a Demon Hunter finding me again.”